Mademoiselle De Maupin
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First English Edition
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good , price clipped
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Tears along folds of jacket. Binding tight. Usual aging. Shelf wear.
A landmark of French Romantic literature, Mademoiselle de Maupin presents a daring and sensuous tale of love, identity, and the pursuit of ideal beauty, inspired by the real-life seventeenth-century opera singer and swordswoman Julie d'Aubigny. Théophile Gautier's novel chronicles the passionate entanglement of the poet d'Albert, who yearns for a perfect lover embodying both masculine and feminine grace, with the enigmatic Madelaine de Maupin, a woman who disguises herself as a man to better understand the opposite sex before surrendering her heart. Written with lush, poetic prose and an unapologetically hedonistic tone, the narrative argues boldly for art's supremacy over morality — a philosophy Gautier articulates with wit and conviction in his famous preface, widely regarded as the manifesto of the art for art's sake movement. The novel illustrates how desire, gender, and aesthetic idealism collide in ways that were scandalous upon its 1835 publication and remain provocative and richly rewarding to this day.
Author: Théophile Gautier (Translated by Paul Selver)
Format: Hardback
Published: 1948, Hamish Hamilton
Genre: Classic fiction
Edition: First English Edition
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good , price clipped
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Tears along folds of jacket. Binding tight. Usual aging. Shelf wear.
A landmark of French Romantic literature, Mademoiselle de Maupin presents a daring and sensuous tale of love, identity, and the pursuit of ideal beauty, inspired by the real-life seventeenth-century opera singer and swordswoman Julie d'Aubigny. Théophile Gautier's novel chronicles the passionate entanglement of the poet d'Albert, who yearns for a perfect lover embodying both masculine and feminine grace, with the enigmatic Madelaine de Maupin, a woman who disguises herself as a man to better understand the opposite sex before surrendering her heart. Written with lush, poetic prose and an unapologetically hedonistic tone, the narrative argues boldly for art's supremacy over morality — a philosophy Gautier articulates with wit and conviction in his famous preface, widely regarded as the manifesto of the art for art's sake movement. The novel illustrates how desire, gender, and aesthetic idealism collide in ways that were scandalous upon its 1835 publication and remain provocative and richly rewarding to this day.